Well, folks, the news is both good and bad and what makes it so paradoxical is that it's both the same news: Fiji looks fabulous; very prosperous and thriving and everyone - apart from Nadi where they've just had those three devastating floods in a row - everyone seems very happy and affluent.
The sanctions clearly haven't worked, so much so that I have to say both countries have been extraordinarily stupid trying to punish Fiji this way because all they've done is create a national friendships vacuum and thus driven Fiji deep into the clutches of China and none of us really want that, do we?
And the Chinese are in there with a vengeance if you must know and we have only our former Big Brother nations to thank for the situation. Gosh, I'm cross with Australia and New Zealand.
And what makes it particularly inexcusable is that they continue to believe, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that Bainimarama is an evil tyrant. Rather than struggling under his "yoke of oppression", everyone at a grassroots level seems most fond of Our Humble Leader, without a bad word from anyone I talked to.
Most were even entirely impressed with him especially since he was so effective after the Nadi floods - although I did hear a grumble that he didn't get into the hinterland of Nadi where they'd had devastating landslides that wiped out a great many homes, plantations and villages, but he can hardly be held responsible for not going there because he didn't know and he can't be blamed for that since no one else knew about it either. It wasn't until certain Rotary members heard rumours and went in on horseback to check it out that it was discovered just how bad everything was.
Since I've been traveling I haven't heard any news about what's happening there, but I will check it out and get back to you with details, if any, of the rescue efforts there.
As for those other three serious natural disasters Nadi had this year? Baby Jane and I talked to lots of people who'd really had it bad, however it looks like it's now become a talking point - and almost a competition - about who had the highest water in their house or business. And for some, it went: "This was the first." and they'd show a height around knee level, "This was the second." and the hand would hover around chest level, and "This was the third." and it would be over their heads and they'd have lots of stories about climbing up onto the roof, waiting for boats to come rescue them. It really was a horrible business and if something isn't done, things are just going to get worse.
And in the valleys behind Nadi, they are definitely expecting more of the same. We had to laugh when we saw what the poorest Indian farmers are doing to their houses. Dotted over the landscape are now giant nine and 10 foot high poles with tiny little wooden houses perched on top. They're obviously expecting the worst but haven't thought it through much after that because it's clear that no one has yet figured out a permanent way to get in and out of those houses. Currently they're using ladders and we all decided they're going to find it becomes desperately inconvenient very quickly.
However, isn't it mysterious that a city that didn't flood suddenly had three huge ones in a row, each worse than the last. Being me, naturally I asked around and apart from people who believe that, like New Orleans, Nadi's sinking, most people think it's caused by the land reclamation and mangrove removal at Denarau Resort Island ...
... and I rather suspect that Denarau thinks so too because all the resorts have clubbed together and selected 1000 children whose families were wiped out by the floods promising they will now pay for their entire education up to whatever level they reach.
The best way to ask for forgiveness in Fiji? Obviously it's to pay for education, because schooling in Fiji isn't free after the first five years and EVERYONE is very aspirational.
But on a more personal level, the Nadi-ites I was most worried about during these floods were all fine, even Molly who lives right by the mangroves, and in fact everyone who lives behind where the mangroves remain intact were so little affected that most spent their days working in the Evacuation Centres, helping others who lived in areas without the protective shield of those mangrove swamps.
Nonetheless these environmental disasters haven't stopped them wiping out even more mangroves, as you can see here:
Another new resort goes up,
and another stretch of mangroves comes down.
I really don't understand why everyone thinks it needs to be done and if you ask folks will say it's done on aesthetic grounds because mangroves are ugly, but it so isn't so. It just requires a new eye and a new way of thinking. Molly, who loves mangroves and wouldn't let them touch any outside her place, says that you can keep your mangroves and make them look like just another part of your garden if you plant rows of gardenia bushes in front of them. The leaves of both are practically identical and the blending of the two, especially when the gardenias are in flower, is spectacular because visually it looks like you have a giant gardenia shrubbery.
So how about it, resorts and other mangrove-killers?
Apart from the mangrove killing, the other heartbreaking sight was all those walls:
Anyone got dynamite?
Yup, for a nation with the Constitutional Right for each individual to have a pathway to the sea, and all beaches and banuves (land beside the beach) held as Native Title under National Trust there are pig-dog-ugly foreign-owned walls cutting off all access for endless miles all along the highway between Nadi and Suva. You really do have to ask who is responsible for this outrage.
But heartbreaking as this was, nothing could beat "the horror, the horror" of seeing our beachhouse in Deuba ...
... cut off from the beach where we'd grown up, romping there all our lives, and the very spot where our beloved mother ...
Mum.
... died.
This photo may not look like much to you, but I'll tell you that taking it I had tears streaming down my face:
"The horror. The horror."
A private property sign
and they placed it right there!
Look at it. That's the spot. The very spot.
See this old photo?
That's Little Brother (who doesn't want to be named in this blog) romping in the creek on Loloma Beach. This photo is a very great treasure of mine and not just because Little Brother looks so happy. It's because right behind him is the very spot where mum, walking the dogs on the beach at sunset with Little Brother, suddenly sat down, sitting for a short while before laying back and watching the sun go down.
So, as the sun went down in Deuba this holiday, naturally the wall and that horrendously wrong Private Property sign couldn't hold us back. In memory of our mother, we all got in behind that pig-dog-ugly wall and sat on OUR beach at that very spot and watched the sun go down too. It was exceptionally lovely, knowing that this peaceful, silent scene is what she saw during her last moments on earth:
So that is the REAL private property! That which is buried deep in your heart. And it's sickeningly wrong that some ugly-American property developer can take it away from us in this illegal and unconstitutional way.
So can you understand now why this sign makes me cry. They really don't have the right and I just wish I could be angry rather than saddened by this outrage:
TRUE EVIL!
Questions need to be asked, yes? I know that Fiji's Constitution is currently down ... but there really needs to be some protection for all of us, something to stop these evil opportunists from taking it all away from us. WHO is doing it, right? But most importantly ... how do we stop it?
There is a great deal more I can say on this subject and also on the subject of Fiji in general, but not today. HK is sweltering and I feel the need to get out of this desperately humid room.
But do watch this space?
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